第67章

It seems that God has put truth in your ears, and error in your eyes;but study optics, and you will see that God has not deceived you, and that it is impossible for objects to appear to you otherwise than you see them in the present state of things.PHYSICAL PREJUDICESThe sun rises, the moon also, the earth is motionless : these are natural physical prejudices.But that lobsters are good for the blood, because when cooked they are red; that eels cure paralysis because they wriggle;that the moon affects our maladies because one day someone observed that a sick man had an increase of fever during the waning of the moon; these ideas and a thousand others are the errors of ancient charlatans who judged without reasoning, and who, being deceived, deceived others.HISTORICAL PREJUDICESMost historical stories have been believed without examination, and this belief is a prejudice.Fabius Pictor relates that many centuries before him, a vestal of the town of Alba, going to draw water in her pitcher, was ravished, that she gave birth to Romulus and Remus, that they were fed by a she-wolf, etc.The Roman people believed this fable; they did not examine whether at that time there were vestals in Latium, whether it were probable that a king's daughter would leave her convent with her pitcher, whether it were likely that a she-wolf would suckle two children instead of eating them; the prejudice established itself.

A monk writes that Clovis, being in great danger at the battle of Tolbiac, made a vow to turn Christian if he escaped; but is it natural to address oneself to a foreign god on such an occasion? is it not then that the religion in which one was born acts most potently? Which is the Christian who, in a battle against the Turks, will not address himself to the Holy Virgin rather than to Mohammed? It is added that a pigeon brought the holy phial in its beak to anoint Clovis, and that an angel brought the oriflamme to lead him; prejudice believed all the little stories of this kind.Those who understand human nature know well that Clovis the usurper and Rolon (or Rol) the usurper turned Christian in order to govern the Christians more Surely, just as the Turkish usurpers turned Mussulman in order to govern the Mussulmans more surely.RELIGIOUS PREJUDICESIf your nurse has told you that Ceres rules over the crops, or that Vishnou and Xaca made themselves men several times, or that Sammonocodom came to cut down a forest, or that Odin awaits you in his hall near Jutland, or that Mohammed or somebody else made a journey into the sky; if lastly your tutor comes to drive into your brain what your nurse has imprinted on it, you keep it for life.If your judgment wishes to rise against these prejudices, your neighbours and, above all, your neighbours' wives cry out " Impious reprobate," and dismay you; your dervish, fearing to see his income diminish, accuses you to the cadi, and this cadi has you impaled if he can, because he likes ruling over fools, and thinks that fools obey better than others: and that will last until your neighbours and the dervish and the cadi begin to understand that foolishness is good for nothing, and that persecution is abominable.Philosophical Dictionary: Rare RARE RARE in natural philosophy is the opposite of dense.In moral philosophy, it is the opposite of common.

This last variety of rare is what excites admiration.One never admires what is common, one enjoys it.

An eccentric thinks himself above the rest of wretched mortals when he has in his study a rare medal that is good for nothing, a rare book that nobody has the courage to read, an old engraving by Albrecht Durer, badly designed and badly printed: he triumphs if he has in his garden a stunted tree from America.This eccentric has no taste; he has only vanity.

He has heard say that the beautiful is rare ; but he should know that all that is rare is not beautiful.

Beauty is rare in all nature's works, and in all works of art.

Whatever ill things have been said of women, I maintain that it is rarer to find women perfectly beautiful than passibly good.

You will meet in the country ten thousand women attached to their homes, laborious, sober, feeding, rearing, teaching their children; and you will find barely one whom you could show at the theatres of Paris, London, Naples, or in the public gardens, and who would be looked on as a beauty.

Likewise, in works of art, you have ten thousand daubs and scrawls to one masterpiece.

If everything were beautiful and good, it is clear that one would no longer admire anything; one would enjoy.But would one have pleasure in enjoying? that is a big question.

Why have the beautiful passages in " The Cid," " The Horaces," " Cinna,"had such a prodigious success? Because in the profound night in which people were plunged, they suddenly saw shine a new light that they did not expect.

It was because this beauty was the rarest thing in the world.

The groves of Versailles were a beauty unique in the world, as were then certain passages of Corneille.St.Peter's, Rome, is unique.

But let us suppose that all the churches of Europe were equal to St.

Peter's, Rome, that all statues were Venus dei Medici, that all tragedies were as beautiful as Racine's '' Iphigenie '', all works of poetry as well written as Boileau's " Art Poetique ", all comedies as good as " Tartufe ", and thus in every sphere; would you then have as much pleasure in enjoying masterpieces become common as they made you taste when they were rare?

I say boldly " No! "; and I believe that the ancient school, which so rarely was right, was right when it said: Ab assuetis non fit passio , habit does not make passion.